Hmm, some brief blah blah blah.

1) heck of a win for Obama. A lot of the battleground states were very close, but he pulled through to rack up a decisive electoral margin.  I thought he would win, but badly underestimated his margin of victory.

2) Throughout all of the election coverage, there was genuine pride and excitement beaming in the faces of African-Americans and the young supporters of Obama.  A great moment in American history.

3) The honeymoon period might last longer for Obama since he is the first black President, but I wonder how long it will take before things degenerate back into politics as usual ... after all, these are bureaucratic creatures of habit with their own sense of self-preservation and organizational agendas.  Beware, when you start to tread on the territory of these beasties.

4) Obama does have a trump card, should he encounter problems from the Dems or Reps. Because of his historic presidency, he might be able to use a Reagan tactic and appeal directly to the American people to try to transcend / bypass political obstacles through grassroots momentum.

5) there needs to be a shift from rhetoric to reality.  For example - his foreign policy consisted of nice talking points that would attract voters, but those ideas did not really form a practical or coherent plan.  Again, there are a lot of ideas out there that may sound plausible superficially in a rhetorical vacuum, but in actual practice will fall flat on its face - kinda like that neato Marxism idea.

Overall, both McCain and Obama seem like genuinely decent people.  I just thought that a lot of their ideas sucked.  Hopefully, Obama will succeed in doing what I had hoped Bush would have done ... which was to do very little, not mess things up, and leave people alone by staying the hell out of their business. 

Unfortunately, the circumstances of history made that impossible for Bush.  Hopefully, fate will be kinder to Obama, and his tenure as President will be boring and uneventful.  And I hope that Obama understands that a wise leader isn't one who knows how to rule over the people, but rather, one who knows how to let the people rule themselves.

bleh, what sappy "little grasshopper" pablum, heh.  more likely everyone's gonna go all FDR II on us, lmao. ah well ...

Obama has McCain on the ropes and looks to win on points, but if he wanted to, he could KO McCain right now and end it.

He just needs to make a minor policy shift on one issue, perhaps before or during the last debate, and it would all be over.

Taxes.

Obama has already said that he would have to delay some of his spending proposals and may not raise taxes given the current economic situation.  All he has to do is step out a little further and add that if it were in the best interests of the nation and the economy, he would even CUT taxes across the board (including the wealthy) and even consider CUTTING THE CAPITAL GAINS TAX if it would help stimulate the economy.

KO. Game over.

This shift does many things to help Obama.

It would show that he is not a rigid ideologue.  It would show that he is flexible and can adapt to changing circumstances.  It would decimate the two-pronged attack being launched at him right now by McCain i.e. that 1) Obama is an extreme leftist / socialist, and 2) Obama's taxes would ruin the economy. This would win over the Independents and make Obama look much stronger with respect to handling the economy. It would also be an example of "reaching across the aisle" ideologically.  Finally, Obama only has to say that he would "consider" it - not necessarily even do it.

Negatives - very few. This shift is unlikely to cause major defections from the Dems when they are this close to victory.  McCain might try to portray this as a flip-flop, but it won't matter. Obama could easily counter by saying that his position on taxes isn't based on blind ideology, but rather on pragamatism.  He could say that for Republicans, taxation is too much a religion, while for Democrats, taxation is simply a tool used in good governance.  There are times when it is best to raise taxes, and there are times when it is best to lower them, etc. etc. If they attack him by asking how he could fund any of his programs while lowering taxes, Obama could easily counter by saying that the most important task right now is to fix the economy. Everything else must wait.  Once the economy has recovered, then we'll go from there on how to implement new programs.

With this shift in strategy, there just wouldn't be any significant avenue of attack left for McCain. They might try stories about ACORN or whatnot, but I doubt they'd do enough damage.

Also, the fact that Iraq has stabilized helps Obama since Independents are less fearful about handing off the war to someone inexperienced.  Petraeus taking over operations in Afghanistan also helps Obama by similar reasoning.

Anyhoo, Obama probably doesn't need to do this to win, but if he did, his victory would be a fait accompli.

(edit: for a more conservative, and less entertaining option, just do the limited gov't thing - see way below)

Palin has a perfect opportunity to blast Obama by attacking him via the media attacks against her.

Here's how.

She shouldn't complain about unfair media coverage.  She should say something like ...

The media SHOULD ask questions and look into people's backgrounds.  The danger is in UNEQUAL media scrutiny.  When one side is treated differently than the other.  When one candidate is handpicked by the media over the other in the primaries or in the general election.

There are many questions about Obama that have NEVER been asked or that he's been given a free pass on.

1) Obama has admitted to cocaine use.  Why was this hidden under the rug and never even asked as a question by the media?  The public should at least be informed and allowed to decide for themselves.

2) Obama tried to excuse his ties to the terrorist Ayers by saying he was 8 yrs. old during the bombings.  What kind of an excuse is that?  Was he 8 yrs. old when he sought Ayers' political assistance and continued to meet with him?

3) Obama's economic advisors have direct responsibility for the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, even giving themselves big bonuses through fraud.  Obama is the number two recipient of money from them.  Where are the media questions and scrutiny?  Why hasn't he been asked these questions?

4) Obama has exercised bad judgment in selecting his closest political, economic, and spiritual advisors.  His selection of Vice President wasn't that bad (ha ha ha).  But his choices call into question his judgment when selecting a Cabinet.  Whom does he rely upon for advice?

5) How much foreign policy or executive experience does Obama have?  He's had a year to polish his words and his theoretical knowledge, but how much real experience does he have?

6) Obama was asked eight questions at a press conference and then he ran away.  And that was it.  Why does the media think that level of scrutiny is good enough for him, but not for everyone else?

7) In the last debate, Obama was asked which policies he would cut.  He had no answer.  John McCain did.  Ask Obama again.  Sen. Biden, which policies would he cut first?

8) Obama keeps saying that he'll tax only the rich and give 95% a break.  Yeah, gimmie a break.  Doesn't he understand that the taxes will be passed on to you, the consumer, through higher prices?  Isn't the price of gas high enough, or do we need to have the gov't add another tax to it?  Does it matter if you get taxed directly or indirectly?

9) Obama wants to create more big gov't programs.  The more, the merrier.  Just why is it that we keep having to BAILOUT OR FIX these big gov't created programs or institutions?  Fannie and Freddie.  Social Security.  Medicare and Medicaid.  Welfare.  Well, you can add Obama's socialized healthcare to that list.

10) Obama keeps saying that he wanted to send more troops to Afghanistan from Iraq while the war in Iraq was still going badly.  Doesn't he realize that the war in Iraq would have lasted longer and we would have suffered more casualties, and yes, even possibly lost the war in Iraq, if we had done that?  It's just common sense.  You don't worry about burning the roast when the kitchen is on fire.

meh. losing interest, but something along those lines.

could also go into a general riff / theme about how gov't creates problems, underperforms, don't get your money's worth, public schools, blah blah blah.

"DO YOU TRUST BIG GOV'T?"
palin should gesture towards biden.
"then he's your man. vote for him. vote for obama."
"or do you trust small gov't?  a limited gov't that solves problems without creating them.  a gov't that doesn't create messes that you have to keep bailing out.  there are a lot of ideas in washington that may sound good at first - but are terrible when you actually implement them."

"this election is about change.  but it's not the kind of change that the media would like you to believe.  the change - the choice -  is between big gov't bailouts vs. small gov't.  a gov't that's too big for its own good or a gov't that's in touch with main street - that trusts in the common sense of the average american."